Episodes

June 25, 2026

What makes America truly exceptional?

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Our Constitution and religious beliefs have been under assault for decades by many who stand opposed to American values and virtues. Because it’s these two elements that are at the heart of American exceptionalism. Victor Davis Hanson expounds accurately on American exceptionalism - what made it and what will destroy it...
June 23, 2026

Columbia taught her how to be a good socialist, but she refused

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Columbia promotes socialism while ignoring thinkers who defend liberty, free markets, and constitutional principles. John Witherspoon’s Princeton legacy contrasts sharply with today’s ideological classrooms, while Liza Libes’s Soviet family history exposes socialism’s true cost and reminds readers why education must recover truth, goodness, beauty, and honest historical memory...
June 20, 2026

Thomas Jefferson, the man with a masterly pen

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Thomas Jefferson’s gift for writing shapes America’s founding voice, from A Summary View of the Rights of British America to the Declaration of Independence. His classical education, bold language, and fearless counsel to King George III reveal why John Adams praises him as a man with a masterly pen today...
June 18, 2026

Is there a mythology surrounding 1776?

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – A defense of 1776 challenges modern claims that America’s founding ideals are mythology. By revisiting Jefferson, Aristotle, virtue, and classical learning, it argues that the founding generation understands happiness as moral formation rather than selfish desire, urging readers to recover old books, civic wisdom, and historical memory today...
June 16, 2026

Nation’s Report Card: Student achievement remains below pre-pandemic levels

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Twenty-one percent of the colleges earned an “F,” largely because they are teaching practices debunked years ago, such as “three-cuing,” where children look at pictures to guess words that they don’t know, the report said. “Failing to prepare future teachers to teach reading well is a form of educational malpractice against...
June 13, 2026

The story of two Virginians going toe-to-toe on Independence

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Two Virginia founders, Richard Henry Lee and Benjamin Harrison, stand on opposite sides of the independence debate before both sign the Declaration of Independence. Their story reveals clashing strategies, deep family legacies, and the difficult path from hopes of reconciliation to a shared commitment to American liberty and self-government together...
June 12, 2026

Connecticut declares war on homeschool families

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Connecticut’s new homeschooling restrictions spark alarm among parents and advocates who say House Bill 5468 treats families as suspects before they teach at home. Critics warn mandatory reviews, government oversight, and background checks threaten parental rights, educational freedom, homeschool independence, and similar freedoms across America today in the years ahead...
June 11, 2026

DOJ investigates schools in California over gender ideology & parental rights

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – “This Department of Justice will not tolerate local school authorities trampling on the rights of parents concerning the education of their children,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon. The Justice Department is looking into whether their policies and practices regarding instruction on sexual orientation and gender ideology violate...
June 10, 2026

Darkness of communism to the light of freedom! The Zdenka Alexova story

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – The Marxists education system worked through fear . . students were raised to be afraid . . teachers discouraged creative thought. She was not allowed to sing in school unless it was a song praising communism or Lenin. As a ten year old, she realized she would not achieve any dreams of her own...
June 4, 2026

How to get back the lost art of memorization

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – In a classical education, memorization plays a primary role. As a matter of fact, memorization is the very foundation of grammar school. A few years ago I received a message from a former student. I taught her in middle school almost 25 years ago. Her message was short, but full of gratitude because of an assignment I insisted upon the...
June 3, 2026

Surgeon General issues warning about screen time for kids

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – “Early exposure to screens carries developmental and cognitive risks. Screen use in early life is linked to poorer language outcomes,” the advisory states, pointing to research that found that children who used screens more had poorer language skills. The advisory further states that excessive screen time has been linked to inferior educational and health...
June 2, 2026

Don’t give up the ship

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – From Captain James Lawrence’s final command to Oliver Hazard Perry’s victory on Lake Erie, “Don’t give up the ship” echoes into modern education. Classical schools grow as families embrace faith, Western thought, phonics, rhetoric, and moral formation, proving perseverance still shapes America’s classrooms and the enduring pursuit of wisdom today...
May 30, 2026

The story of two declaration signers from Virginia who we rarely hear about

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Two overlooked Virginia signers, Thomas Nelson Jr. and George Wythe, reveal how sacrifice, courage, learning, and virtue sustain liberty. Their lives call schools, families, and churches to form citizens who choose duty over comfort and understand that freedom depends on character as much as knowledge, law, and public service today...
May 29, 2026

America forgot George Washington’s most important warning

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Washington’s farewell address offers a timely warning about national unity, political division, foreign entanglements, and the indispensable role of religion and morality in public life. His words challenge Americans to reconsider the foundations of liberty, education, and civic responsibility while reflecting on how far the nation has drifted morally today...
May 27, 2026

What is the Presidential 1776 award for civics?

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Under the Trump Administration, the federal government is pushing for a renewal of civics education. Education Secretary Linda McMahon commended the student participants. “To all of the students showing off their knowledge of our amazing nation and leaving their mark celebrating our Semiquincentennial, you’ve earned a big round of...
May 21, 2026

College grads are worried about AI overtaking the workforce

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – In an attempt to motivate the graduating class of 2026, Schmidt told them they have the power to shape how AI develops, a claim which was also met by laughter and boos. When Schmidt realized he was losing the students over their trepidation about AI, he resorted to buzzwords such as “diversity” and “immigrant.” But the students were not buying what he...
May 20, 2026

Princeton changes its honor code, revealing a severe lack of education

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Princeton’s Honor Code faces upheaval as widespread cheating exposes a deeper failure in modern education. Rather than blaming AI, the problem points to missing lessons in honor, character, virtue, and self-discipline. America’s founding examples remind schools that integrity must be taught and modeled again before trust in students disappears completely...
May 19, 2026

Will closing the Department of Education fix education?

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Even if the DOE were abolished tomorrow,” Brooks states, “The ideological orientation of American schooling would remain intact.” The reason for this is that the engines of indoctrination do not originate at the Federal level. The real problem in education is not federal management at the DOE level but ideological capture at the...
May 14, 2026

State legislatures are cracking down on the operations of teachers’ unions

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – The Freedom Foundation is a policy organization that has been assisting state legislators with these measures as well as helping teachers opt out of union membership. The foundation notes that it has helped more than 272,535 teachers in red and blue states to opt out of union membership, including more than 50,000 in 2025 alone...
May 13, 2026

Texas parents, Paxton wage dual battle over school libraries and prayer

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – AG Paxton is investigating dozens of Texas school districts to confirm compliance with Ten Commandments in the classrooms and school boards creating a time for student prayer throughout the school day. One Texas mom is suing the Houston Independent School District (HISD) relating to graphic sexuality that is available in the school library...
May 12, 2026

Moms and DOJ push back against sexual indoctrination

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – One mom was removed from a Houston School Board meeting for reading explicit material from a library book, while several school districts in IL are under investigation for promoting sexual ideology. In the complaint, Wallace states the school district violated her First Amendment Rights by removing her from the public gathering because of the...
May 9, 2026

How one Georgia delegate led the entire colony to independence

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Lyman Hall’s stand in St. John’s Parish shows how courage begins in small duties. As Georgia hesitates, one parish chooses conviction and helps draw a colony toward independence. From a mother’s steady labor to classrooms that form virtue, freedom depends on families, teachers, and citizens who stand, teach, and love...
May 8, 2026

This Supreme Court justice issues a warning about Progressivism

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Progressives like John Dewey criticized the founders for considering principles in the Declaration of Independence as timeless truths. In his view, the ideas in the Declaration were only relevant to their era, not binding on future generations. A few weeks ago, Justice Clarence Thomas was giving a speech at the University of Texas, marking the 250th anniversary of...
May 5, 2026

What makes America exceptional?

The Dean’s List with Host Dean Bowen – Both our Constitution and religious beliefs have been under assault for decades by many who stand opposed to American values and virtues. Because it’s these two elements that are at the heart of American exceptionalism. Victor Davis Hanson expounds accurately on American exceptionalism - what made it and what will destroy it...